Site Layout

Patterns made relatively few contributions to our general site layout. The shape of our lot, its relation to the street and utilities, and the setbacks and easements imposed by the city combined to make the placing of our house fairly obvious: our house would be at the east end of a long east/west oriented lot. Fortunately, these constraints ended up being fairly consistent with what we wanted out of the site layout patterns. (As before, problem descriptions and solutions -- the first two bullet points of each section -- are from A Pattern Language.)

Site repair (104):

• Problem: Buildings must always be built on those parts of the land which are in the worst condition, not the best.
• Therefore: On no account place the buildings in the places which are most beautiful. If fact, do the opposite. Consider the site and its buildings as a single living eco-system. Leave those areas that are the most precious, beautiful, comfortable, and healthy as they are, and build new structures in those parts of the site which are least pleasant now.
• For our home: The site naturally lent itself to fulfilling this pattern. Our lot is one portion of what was once a larger lot. The east side of our property had been disturbed by the construction of two new homes to the north. The west side is mostly wooded and partially a buffer zone for a nearby critical slope. Based on these constraints, it was natural to leave the wooded area intact and build on the disturbed land.

South facing outdoors (105):

• Problem: People use open space if it is sunny, and do not use it if it isn't, in all but desert climates.
• Therefore: Always place buildings to the north of the outdoor spaces that go with them, and keep the outdoor spaces to the south. Never leave a deep band of shade between the building and the sunny part of the outdoors.
• In our home: Our site is long east-west and short north-south, so we do not have a lot of flexibility for north/south siting. Part of the southern side of the property is taken by easements for a pedestrian path and for utilities. We have trees along the south western edge of our property, which decreases the amount of sunlight available. Despite the difficulties, we still have a sunny front yard in the east and a backyard in the west filled with tree-filtered sunlight. Neither requires going through deeply shaded areas for access. The shaded north side will be a terraced path down to the back yard.

Main entrance (110):

• Problem: Placing the main entrance (or main entrances) is perhaps the single most important step you take during the evolution of a building plan.
• Therefore: Place the main entrance of the building at a point where it can be seen immediately from the main avenues of approach and give it a bold, visible shape which stands out in front of the building.
• In our home: The location of the main entry was constrained by where we could put the garage (only on the north side). The garage also causes the entry to be nestled in instead of standing out in front of the building. We adapted to this difficulty and the site's natural elevation change by adding a large, bold stairway down to the front door. This extends the entry out so that it can be seen from all three approaches (driveway, sidewalk, and pedestrian path).

Entrance transition (112):

• Problem: Buildings, and especially houses, with a graceful transition between the street and the inside, are more tranquil than those which open directly off the street.
• Therefore: Make a transition space between the street and the front door. Bring the path which connects street and entrance through this transition space and mark it with a change of light, a change of sound, a change of direction, a change of surface, a change of level, perhaps by gateways which make a change of enclosure, and above all with a change of view.
• In our home: The design and placement of the entry were a good start for this pattern. The entry stairs (on the left in the image below) provide a natural change of level, material, and view. However, we need to make sure that this connects to all of the approaches. To aid in this, we are planning on adding some stairs from the sidewalk to the entry. These will provide a connection and allow us to add landscaping to further emphasize the sense of transition.

Car connection (113):

• Problem: The process of arriving in a house, and leaving it, is fundamental to our daily lives; and very often it involves a car. But the place where cars connect to houses, far from being important and beautiful, is often off to one side and neglected.
• Therefore: Place the parking place for the car and the main entrance, in such a relation to each other, that the shortest route from the parked car into the house, both to the kitchen and to the living rooms, is always through the main entrance. Make the parking place for the car into an actual room which makes a positive and graceful place where the car stands, not just a gap in the terrain.
• In our home: This pattern had a large influence on the design of our entry sequence. This pattern and past experience convinced us that we really didn't want to have multiple main entries into the home. We decided to just have one — there isn't even a door directly inside from the garage. The driveway, garage, and other approaches all funnel into the single (covered) entry. Architecturally, the car connection is not a positive place (i.e., enclosed on multiple sides). however, we are planning on using garden features to give it a feel of enclosure.

Next up in out pattern posts will be a discussion of the patterns that influenced our building envelope.